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The Documentary Podcast
Saving Ukraine's children
The Documentary Podcast
Apr 16, 2022

The United Nations’ children agency, Unicef, has said that almost two thirds of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children have been displaced during the six weeks since Russia’s invasion.

One of Russia’s key targets has been the southern port city of Mariupol. Thousands of civilians are dead, many more have been left trapped and face an horrendous struggle for survival. Pastor Gennady Mokhnenko is a chaplain from Mariupol. He describes what he has seen and heard in the city, and his efforts to help children to escape. He is joined in conversation by Vasylyna Dubaylo, director of the charity Partnership for Every Child. She’s currently in Poland and has been helping foster children find Ukrainian families.

The war has now separated millions of people in Ukraine from loved ones/ Host Ben James introduces us to Olha and Andrii, a young married couple. Olha took an opportunity to leave with her younger siblings, but is now more than five thousand miles away in Canada. Andrii remains in Ukraine, wondering if he will be called upon to fight for his country. Neither of them know when or if they will see each other again, and they discuss how the war has changed their lives.

Guidance: Contains graphic content.

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The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts. Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India. If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.

This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.

Presented by Faranak Amidi.

Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)


26min 28sec




Saving Ukraine's children

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